Addressing a writer's only true failure: not writing.

Vaper Therapy?

I’ve always found nicotine interesting. Smoking and chewing are both enormously deleterious drug delivery methods, regardless of the drug…but nictotine as a drug has gotten relatively minimal study. It is highly addictive, but the long-term health impacts of the drug itself appear to be relatively mild compared to those of its most popular delivery methods. Where this leaves vaping in the future is still anybody’s guess.

Helen Redmond, who generally advocates e-cigarettes as a harm reduction tool, stresses their benefits in particular for those who use nicotine to treat the symptoms of mental illness:

That almost 90% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia smoke—despite tobacco’s well-known adverse health consequences—is a testament to the addictiveness of nicotine. But it is also evidence of nicotine’s power to chemically quell anxiety, depression and other upset. (The prevalence of smoking among people with bipolar and panic disorder, depression, anxiety and PTSD is also high.) …

For smokers who have chronic mental illness, the case for nicotine maintenance via e-cigarettes is even more powerful. Many are simply unable to remain completely abstinent. In a current JAMA study, Harvard researchers report that the decline in smoking, from 2004 to 2011, among people with mental illness was significantly less (from 25.3% to 23.8%) than among those without mental illness (from 19.2% to 16.5%). This is not only…